Tanglewood Black Police Blue
by alekat9395
Summary: A continuation of the episode 'Tanglewood'.


Tanglewood Black Police Blue

Written by Alekat

Rating: K

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters but I did take some creative liberty with them and I created a few new characters of my own.

Pairing: N/A

Spoilers: Tanglewood

Summary: It's a continuation of the ep.

Author's Note: This fan fic has been posted to the CSI NY Fan Fic yahoo group so I'm sorry if you receive it twice. A friend told me I should post my earlier stories here so I'm doing that to share with those of you who want to read. I have never been to NYC so my apologies if I got the names of anything wrong; it was not my intent. There are several things inside the story that I did extensive research on but if I happened to mix anything up please forgive me. I'm not a police officer but I did run this story by my friend who is a Chief of Police. He thought I did okay with the police stuff so take it easy on my first writing of CSI NY. Thank you to my friend and beta, Miss Nit Picky, for an exceptional job at cleaning up my mess that I like to call writing…

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Danny slipped his glasses back on his face and waited the heartbeat of time that he knew it would take for the uniformed officer to walk the prisoner past the door from the viewing room that he was standing in. He wanted to get out of the station house before Mac could find him. He had known from the moment that Mac had consulted him on this case that he would eventually be on the hot seat.

He stepped out into the hallway moments after the prisoner was taken away, his thoughts still swirling around the last words of Sonny Sassone, 'Just ask Danny Messer, he knows all about us.' Those words were churning in Danny's head. Why didn't he just tell Mac before this? Would it have been so bad to come clean then instead of now when Mac was sure to have drawn the correct conclusions?

His hope that he would make a clean getaway, at least for tonight, was shattered when from behind him, he heard the low but authoritative voice of his superior, "Danny, my office, please." His shoulders dropped as his worst fears crashed down on his head with the sound of that voice.

Danny turned and followed Mac to his office with Stella falling in step behind the both of them. She had watched the look on Mac's face when the suspect had mentioned Danny. She wondered what this was all about but was stopped by the shutting of the door and a short terse nod from Mac through the glass window of his office. It was to be understood, this was a private conversation between Mac and Danny.

Inside the office, Danny felt twelve again back when he had been called to the principals' office for calling Carla Tucci a fat cow even though he had thought himself in love with her and had no other way to express how he felt.

With an odd mixture of anger and disappointment etched across his face, Mac watched a different war of emotions playing across Danny's face and said, "Have a seat Danny."

Danny shook his head to decline the invitation and said, "Look Mac, I know what this is about and I'd rather just not talk about it."

Leaning against his desk in much the same way that he had earlier when he and Danny had talked about this case, Mac crossed his arms over his chest and let out an exasperated sigh then calmly spoke. "Danny, this is not something you can avoid talking about at least with me."

"It's private, Mac." His words were short and to the point. This was not a subject he wanted to discuss.

"Danny," Mac began in that calm soothing tone that he used in interrogation when he was still trying to get a feel of the suspects' guilt or innocence, "You had to know that this would find its way out eventually."

"I did," Danny sighed, "I just didn't want it to interfere with my work."

"I need to know how deeply you were involved." Mac crossed his legs at his ankles readied for a long involved answer to his request.

Danny stopped his pacing and fidgeted nervously putting his hands in his pockets and turning to face his boss. "I was a member of the Tanglewood Boys, okay?"

Mac nodded, his suspicions appeased, but kept quiet waiting for an elaboration and when Danny didn't say any more, he spoke, "I assume you legitimately got out since you are using the past tense – was."

Danny pulled his hands out of his pockets and moved around the room stopping to look at the shadow box containing Mac's ribbons from his days as a Marine. The tension in Danny's shoulders was visible as Mac watched him shift from foot to foot while he stood looking at the shadow box. Just as Mac thought he was going to have to ask again Danny began talking almost to himself.

"I was thirteen when I was first approached by Sonny and the gang. We all went to school together and had been friends forever. They all knew that my old man was a cop and that made me an easy target for all the tough guys. I mean lets face it I'm not the biggest or strongest guy around."

He sighed and turned around to find that Mac had moved from his position leaning against the desk to now sitting in one of the chairs in front of the desk.

"Back then I was the shortest and smallest kid on the block. Hell even the girls were stronger than me. I thought if I buddied up with the guys in the gang that everyone who had been picking on me my entire life might just leave me alone." He took the position that Mac had vacated and leaned against the front of Mac's desk and crossed his arms over his chest. "I didn't join because I wanted to make trouble for anybody. I didn't do it to break the law. And when my dad found out it wasn't pretty."

"How long were you in?" Mac asked curious as to how far Danny had gone to fit in. Mac could associate with the fears and feelings that Danny must have had at the awkward age of thirteen, nowhere close to manhood but ready to leave his childhood behind. Mac remembered that he was about the same age when he started thinking about the Marines as a way out of his own tense awkward teenage years.

Danny removed his glasses and pressed the bridge of his nose with his finger and thumb trying to keep at bay the headache that was trying to form there. With a soft sigh, he continued, "I was initiated when I was fourteen." Danny paused for a moment thinking back to that day when he had been hauled into the back room at Vito's Pizza Parlor and held down while Old Man Vito Sassone etched the tattoo of the word Tanglewood and the in date on his arm. He had just turned fourteen and he was determined that, no matter how badly his arm hurt, not to cry. A cough from Mac brought him back to the story he was telling and he continued, "And I stayed in till I was nineteen. Five long years, three of which my parents had no idea I was in a gang."

"How did they find out?" Mac was sensing that Danny needed to talk this through and he wanted to hear the story as well as figure out how best to handle the fact that one of his promotion bound CSIs had been a member of one of the most notorious gangs in Yonkers.

"I got arrested trying to boost a car." Danny dropped his head shaking it side to side, not believing that he had done some of the things he was now arresting people for. "My dad's LT was there at the station when the two uniforms hauled me in. He called my dad and the charge was dropped since it was my first offense and I was still a minor, barely. That's when he found out that I had been in for three years."

"Three years and that was your first arrest?" Mac interjected, trying to suppress a smile, not surprised that Danny had managed to stay out of trouble and be a part of a gang.

"Yeah." Danny chuckled, "I was really good at finding ways to get out of the things that were really bad. My initiation was to pop this guy and steal his car."

Mac sat up straighter in his chair and listened intently almost afraid of the next words from Danny.

"Relax, Mac, I didn't do it. Well I mean I didn't kill anybody." Danny sighed and shook his head, "Man I can't believe I was even involved. That was so long ago. Another lifetime really."

"How did you get in if you didn't complete the initiation?" Listening to Danny, Mac could not help but wonder what Danny's father must have been going through knowing his son was a member of a gang. Mac wondered how he himself would feel if he had a son who joined a gang as a way to fit in.

"I didn't say I didn't complete it I said I didn't kill anybody. I was there ready to do it. I had the gun in my hand and everything. I was going to go through with it but there was this guy from the Pelham crew that showed up out of the blue and popped the guy and got me in the process. The bullet grazed my shoulder and that got me in. I took a bullet from the rival gang and survived. Weird really. That event probably kept me from going down the wrong road in a way. I didn't want to shoot that guy but I probably would have if the Pelham guy hadn't done it first."

"So how did you finally get out?" He had Mac's full attention now and Mac was ready to learn what it took for a Tanglewood Boy to get out.

"My ticket out was actually how I got into police work." Danny stood and began a slow circuit around the room again stopping when he reached the window that looked out onto the lab to the left where Aidan was looking at fingerprints trying to run a match on a new case, he assumed.

"When I got arrested I was weeks away from my eighteenth birthday so if it happened again I would go to jail and my dad didn't want that to happen. Then I was a rebellious teenager now I can see his point of view." He paused for a moment and smiled a crooked half smile at Stella who walked into the lab where Aidan was still processing the fingerprint. Stella looked up at him returning the smile with a quick wink of support.

"So, to keep his only son out of jail, he approached his LT with an idea of how to take down the Tanglewood Boys. This idea involved letting me stay in the gang as a confidential informant. The records were sealed from the public and I began my career in law enforcement." He took a deep cleansing breath and moved back to lean against Mac's desk. Mac could tell by the set in his jaw and the haggard expression on his face that Danny was almost to the end of his rope with this. It had obviously been taking a toll on him.

"I stayed in the gang for another year reporting our movements to my dad over dinner and any other opportunity I could find. Sonny was not the leader then, it was his older brother, Vito Junior. Vito was taking the gang into the drug trade and got involved with a deal that went sour. He got pulled down by the vice guys for a murder when the drug deal fell through and started singing for a deal with the DA."

Mac leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees his attention never wavering as Danny continued, "Vito ratted out as many of the senior members of the Boys that he could and the DA worked it out where I could be released from the gang. My out date was put on the tat two days after I turned nineteen I enrolled in college and the rest is history."

With those last words, Danny felt the weight of the world lift from his shoulders. At the time, he had not realized what the mistakes of his past would do to his adult life but now he finally understood all that his parents had tried to instill in him when he wanted to be a rebellious brat.

"Wow. I never knew any of this, never noticed the tattoo." Mac leaned back and crossed his right ankle over his left knee. "Those who knew must have been at a bare minimum for your protection."

Danny nodded, "Yeah, my dad, his LT and me until the DA started dealing with Vito Sassone." He paused then asked, "So, Mac is this going to affect my promotion?"

Mac looked thoughtfully at his subordinate, "That is something that I will have to think about. I mean there are ethical questions that have to be answered. If it were up to me and me alone I would say no but there are others who will have to be apprised of the situation. Then there's the promotion board. We'll just have to wait it out."

"Yeah." Danny stood to leave and stopped when Mac spoke again.

"I think it was an admirable thing you did. Your information probably helped put away a lot of thugs who might have still been on the streets today. I'm proud of you, Danny. You turned it all around and look where you are now."

Danny nodded not too thrilled with where he was now. He could be stuck in the same position for the rest of his career with no option to move up but he thought at least he did still have that position.

Mac stood and watched Danny walk down the hallway his mind already turning over ideas of how to make this situation work to Danny's advantage as well as how to alleviate this helpless feeling he himself had that there was a man in holding that could spill the beans on Danny at anytime.

TBC


End file.
